CHASING PAPER.

                   Soundtrack of the moment: Live your life- TI feat Rihanna

This post has been eating away at me for the longest time; but not until my recent trip to the Onitsha Main market in Anambra State (the largest wholesale market in West Africa),I had to vehemently put my pen to paper. I have always tried to stirr my posts on this platform towards much-more engaging & enriching topics exposing and drawing attention incisively to issues affecting we ’the populous’. This topic has been a brew awhile but I have always kept it at bay for the fear of terming it as being lazy! This could probably pass as the memos of a disgruntled common graduate, not one but a flock-full of peers who have earlier dreams/thoughts of conquering the world but are being tossed into a harsh reality of life; the over-saturated job market.

 Growing up and living in Nigeria, in a family of Academicians(Engineer Father, health-worker/ Nurse Mother). Education was always an integral part of my living. I so strongly relied on my wits and guts as I tried so much to equip myself as well as carve a niche for myself , be a master of something passionately. I depended on this to get me through life and was so ill-blinded to any other means below par. To anyone who school here, its really no news describing the nitty-gritty details or hoops/hurdles one has to pass to secure admission into either the State or Fed Unis, or for those who had it easy to attend the Private Schools where silver-spooned snubs dine together it no fine feat to get your name into the NYSC scheme which is a post –requisite at nibbling any kind of placement. I love the finer luxuries of life just like the Ace Comedian Buchi was unto something in one of his comical skits; ’Nigeria has a way of changing one dreams’ where he mocked our childish dreams and aspirations as they were never attainable or for the most part somewhat thwarted in a society such as ours. Schooling here takes the school smart away and infuses the street smart possibly in a bid to align with that statement’ the End justifies the Means’. But evidently the means is immaterial. University is a big melting pot for all walks of life especially in a world where all you do or want to do revolves around PAPER, PAPER but which is it…Geez!

                           ‘The paper on the wall doesn’t make a Man’-ANONYMOUS
  
But the Business-savvy lads seem to have another take on this. ‘’Put your money where your mouth is’’ they say. My trip exposed quite another side of life; a faster lane I‘d say, where it seemed I have been niggling away and sharing blames. For a moment I wondered in comparism of our individualistic growths in every feats of life and our moral jurisdictions, these guys are no JOKE. Talk cash, that’s their language; I was made to understand how some were once like I am and now have the quest to earn a livelihood drawn into the buying & selling world. Not just that, the thought that we slaved nights of candle reading and wiped stressful sweats off our foreheads in a plight to snatch one these and then this could be a reality waiting to materialize was daunting enough…For me though!*Buchi’s skit struck a nerve* It’s a hard-knock life, made for the daring but I thought that I had won the race; I had picked my battles well. Yet the Government wonder why there’s so much uprising and the dependency culture still stares at us.

 
It’s no surprise some Gs’ attempt  to sweep these papers into the coolers and venture into other aspects of life,this position is only bound to worsen , I guess we have Entrepreneurial class tutors to thank; for seeing ahead of us and giving us a peak of how bad it is really out there. A culture of reading, enriching knowledge tucked away, Paper chasing the order of the day…why not? They are creating any army of disgruntled people seeing as we dwell in an aesthetic society where pop culture celebrates wealth. The diversity programs they claim aimed at aiding us to acquire skills are a ruse. But who is to be blamed, the institutions?, the Government?, our parents?...Am not one for conspiracy theories but its probably wise to take a break from the classrooms and try to nurture these text-taught out works and churn it into a passion that may someday turn into pipeline doling out paper and grants you a place for smashing at both <Paper and Paper>Hoola…Balling!

   Amy Rants…. In everything;Acquire knowledge.

                                        THANK YOU FOR READING!!!